I’ve never told anyone this. Not really. Not the whole truth of it. But it eats at me, every single day, gnawing at the edges of my peace. For nine years, my life, my plate, my entire relationship with food was dictated by a lie. A cruel, calculated lie that stole my childhood joy and left me with a bitterness that still burns.
For nine long years, from the moment my parent married my step-parent, dinner became a beige landscape of blandness. Chicken boiled, not roasted. Pasta plain, no sauce. Vegetables steamed until they wept flavorless water. No spices, no garlic, no onion, no tomatoes, no nuts, no dairy, no gluten, no anything remotely delicious. Why? Because my stepsiblings, I was told, had severe, life-threatening allergies to practically everything delicious in the world. We ate separately sometimes, if I was lucky, but mostly, it was a ‘family meal’ where I choked down another tasteless plate to show solidarity. I tried to be understanding. I really did. I wanted this new family to work.
I was the eldest. I was supposed to set an example, to be the mature one. So I swallowed the blandness, along with my dreams of pizza, of a spicy curry, of a simple slice of birthday cake that didn’t taste like cardboard and sadness. Every single time I asked, even gently, if we could just once have something different, something with flavor, my step-parent would sigh dramatically, “But darling, you know it’s for their health. We can’t risk it.” And my own parent would chime in, “It’s important to keep the peace, love. It’s just food.” Just food? It felt like my entire childhood was being systematically stripped of color, bite by bite. I learned to hate dinner. I learned to dread holidays, knowing the feast would be a pale imitation, meticulously scrubbed of anything that might give it life.
The years piled up. Seven. Eight. Nine. The resentment simmered beneath the surface, a low, constant hum. I stopped talking about food altogether. What was the point? My taste buds were dead. My spirit, too, felt muted, always a little hungry for something more, something real. But my 16th birthday was coming. Sixteen. It felt like a milestone, a chance to finally, finally be seen. I allowed myself to hope. I asked for one thing, just one: an actual, proper, restaurant-style lasagna. With real cheese, real tomato sauce, real spices. It was my ultimate fantasy meal, the antithesis of everything I’d eaten for nearly a decade.
My birthday dinner arrived. The table was set with careful formality. My step-parent looked… displeased. My parent looked anxious. “So,” my step-parent began, “we got you a… special birthday dinner.” My heart thumped. Could it be? They brought out a dish. It was a lasagna. A pale, anemic, deconstructed lasagna. Gluten-free pasta, a watery, spice-free tomato broth, and a dairy-free “cheese” that looked more like plastic. It was a mockery. It was safe. It was them. My eyes welled up, but I swallowed the tears. “Thank you,” I mumbled, pushing it around my plate.
Later that evening, feeling utterly defeated, I went to my room. I heard hushed voices from the kitchen. My step-parent was on the phone, the back door ajar from where they’d gone to get some air. I wasn’t trying to listen, not really, but their voice carried. “Honestly, she asked for lasagna. Can you believe the nerve? After all these years? I had to pull out the ‘allergies’ card again, of course. It’s just so much easier to say both the kids have a severe gluten and dairy allergy than to explain that I just prefer things simple, and quite frankly, I don’t like all that Italian food. It makes things so much less complicated.”
My breath hitched. My ears rang. I leaned closer to the door, cold dread spreading through my veins. “Oh, the little one does have a slight dairy sensitivity, true,” my step-parent continued, their voice dripping with casual dismissal. “But nothing that would stop them from having a normal slice of pizza once in a while. The other one? Perfectly fine. Always has been. No allergies at all. But it’s brilliant, isn’t it? Gets everyone on board. Especially my partner. Keeps the peace, they say. And I get to eat what I actually like without any fuss.”
The world tilted. NINE YEARS. NINE YEARS of bland, miserable meals. Nine years of feeling like a burden, like my preferences didn’t matter, all because of a fabricated, exaggerated lie that served only one person: my step-parent. And my own parent? My own flesh and blood, knew. Or at least, they were complicit. They prioritized “peace” over my basic happiness, over my childhood. They watched me suffer through it, day after day, year after year.
I didn’t yell. I didn’t cry then. I just walked back to my room, a cold, hard knot forming in my chest. The taste of that bland, sad lasagna was suddenly unbearable. Every single flavorless meal, every dismissed request, every quiet sigh of sacrifice flooded my mind. It wasn’t about the food anymore. It was about the betrayal. The profound, heartbreaking realization that I had been actively, intentionally misled and sacrificed by the very people who were supposed to protect and nurture me. And for what? So one person could have their preferred, easy diet, and my parent could avoid conflict.
I don’t think I’ll ever truly forgive them. The taste of betrayal is far more bitter than any bland meal could ever be. It’s a taste that will stay with me forever.
